


yellow acacias

by fourtccn



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 5 Times, Flowers, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, acacias, dan is CHEESY, like it's just pure g rated fluff, phil is a bit of a procrastinating idiot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 09:33:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11438091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourtccn/pseuds/fourtccn
Summary: The five times Dan gave Phil acacias, and the one time he didn't have to.





	yellow acacias

**Author's Note:**

> this fic trend is probably extremely dead, but i lived for it so i'm going to write it anyway. trying to find a flower with a consistent meaning on different sites was honestly a little harder than needed.  
> also, i have no idea if they visited phil's parents a little into 2016 i'm so bad at dates but i looked up the calendar for the rest of it and it should be in chronological order of 2016 !

Acacia (flower): _Secret love, concealed love_

 

_-_

 

The first time was quick and surprising. It happened while walking around town, which was a rarity for the two boys. They were shopping for Christmas gifts for their families (they both knew they'd most likely end up ordering something offline), and it was absolutely freezing out. Phil was sure he reached around his shoulders to tighten his jacket at least a hundred times, and his legs were definitely frozen from him being an idiot and wearing the thinnest jeans he owned. _  
_

Dan had escaped to grab a present for Phil's brother, Martyn, and had promised to return in a jiffy. (Note that he didn't actually say that, but Phil would find it hilarious if he did.) However, it had been twenty minutes, and Phil was slightly worried and began subconsciously looking in all the shops around him's windows for his best friend.

At last, when Phil was about to text Dan that if he didn't hurry up they would both be suffering with pneumonia for the next week, Dan appeared from behind him, bags in his hand and a bouquet in the other. Phil figured they were for his mother, or maybe even Phil's mother, and didn't even question it until Dan held the flowers out to him.

"I saw these in the window to the flower shop and thought they were pretty. Kind of an accidental buy, if you can call being fully aware of it when you're buying it that."

Phil smiled at him, gently grabbing the flowers. "You bought them because they were pretty?" Phil thought he saw him blush a bit, but he could've been mistaken due to the cold already turning Dan's cheeks pink. He found it pretty adorable either way.

"Yeah, kind of. They're acacias, and the shop owner said they had a cool meaning." Dan started walking, waving Phil along a bit. "But I forgot what it was."

They both started walking in the direction of home, deciding that having the flowers freeze would suck, and having _them_ freeze would be even worse.

Phil made a mental note to look up the meaning behind acacias, but the thought was left out in the cold winter air when he felt the warmth of his home.

-

The second time was about a month after the original flowers died, when the first time had completely left Phil's mind.

They both came home from a quick trip to see Phil's parents absolutely exhausted, and Phil immediately passed out in his bed after taking out his contacts. He slept for so long that when he woke up again, the sun had completely left the sky, when he was sure it was only nine in the morning when he had laid down.

Groggily, Phil crawled out of bed, grabbed his glasses, and padded down the hall. His mismatched socks were scrunched up at the heel and his hair was a mess, making it obvious he had just gotten up. Upon seeing the empty lounge, he suddenly felt startled awake.

"Dan?" He called out, a yawn almost stopping him midway through the name. When he got no reply, Phil ventured out into the kitchen, which was oddly empty as well.

Phil almost left when a flash of yellow caught his eyes, and suddenly he was turning to see the exact same type of flowers already in a vase with a notecard laying next to them.

"You fell asleep earlier than me and I couldn't get to sleep quite yet," the note read, "so I went out for a walk. I saw these in a shop window again and thought of the first time. Heading off to bed now. -Dan". The messy handwriting was smudged a bit from Dan having put a corner of the note under the vase, which was leaving a small water stain around the bottom of it.

Phil didn't really think about Dan getting flowers for him, because it wasn't even confirmed that Dan didn't get them for himself. To Dan, Phil knew they were just best friends. And who's to say you don't buy your best bud a bouquet of beautiful flowers? He honestly didn't even question it.

Instead, Phil grabbed the vase and set it on the middle of their table, wiping up the spilled water from before, and trying really hard not to accidentally break something in his sleepy state.

Almost throwing the note away before deciding to keep it, he walked back to his room once he was satisfied with the placement of the flowers and crawled back into his still-warm bed, the note discarded next to his glasses on the nightstand.

-

It's the end of April the third time Dan gets the acacias, and their flight to Playlist Live was only a day away. Phil was in his room packing (more like sitting on the floor and staring at the messy clothes all over the place) when Dan called him out.

"Phil? Could you come here?" He called, his voice echoing through their hall.

Phil stood up and made his way over to the kitchen where Dan was standing and almost wasn't surprised to see the same flowers in the same vase as always.

"What are these for?" He asked, eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

"I got these as a gift, almost. Like, I just figured, we deserve something. A little reward for writing the book and stuff," Dan said, the smallest of smiles on his face.

Phil laughed. "These are just going to wilt when we're away! I appreciate the thought."

"Yeah, well, your weird houseplants can die with them. They'll watch over the place while we're gone, or something like that," Dan replied, rolling his eyes and immediately turning around to continue "packing" (read: browsing Tumblr on his laptop and waiting until the last possible minute to even start to pack).

Although Phil was frankly the most oblivious person to ever live, he did grow a bit suspicious by the sudden need for Dan to give him the same flowers. It was far enough apart and discreet enough for Phil to just straight up brush off the suspicion of something actually going on, but the confusion was still at the front of his mind for a minute. He remembered Dan telling him that they "had a cool meaning" and told himself to look it up after he finished packing.

He didn't, of course. Instead, he fell asleep on his bedroom floor in the comfortable pile of clothes laying there and woke up late the next day, rushing so much that he almost forgot his laptop charger and completely forgot about his earlier plan.

-

The fourth time wasn't until six months later. It was the day they released their second book, and they were both so tired from the tour that they decided that day was just going to be a resting day instead of partying (or basically just sitting at home with old Panic! at the Disco music playing in the background). Dan, however, decided to go out "for a second", which was odd, because they never really went out without the other. Phil just decided he needed a break for a bit and continued to scroll through his Tumblr tag until Dan returned.

Even though they spent a long time on a tour bus together and saw each other non-stop, the silence was almost deafening without Dan, and Phil actually started to miss him. He was honestly gone for only about twenty minutes, but Phil wasn't used to being without him for over five. (Of course, Phil felt he was probably being clingy, and he would never voice these thoughts out loud.)

When Dan finally did come home, he brought a bunch of loud noises with him, including the slamming of the door and the sound of the keys hitting the floor, along with a loud sigh. It was nearly impossible for Phil not to notice that Dan was definitely home (or a robber who was really bad at being quiet just entered their house, but Phil figured it was the former).

Laughing, Phil started to make his way to the door landing. "Are you alright out there?"

"One second!" Dan called back, shuffling around before walking around the corner, quickly stopping in his tracks when he saw Phil. "Oh! Okay, I wasn't expecting you to be right here," He said, his eyes widening for a second out of surprise. He handed Phil flowers that Phil didn't even notice he was holding. "I got these for you."

Of course, they were the acacias. That didn't surprise Phil at all. The only time Dan ever got flowers were the past three times and this one, and they were all the same kind. What did surprise him, however, was that Dan wasn't discreet this time about making it known they were for him.

All the other times, Dan made it out to be for the both of them, so what was different about this time?

Phil smiled, but on the inside he felt slightly confused. "Thank you! But why did you get them for me?"

Dan pursed his lips and paused for a moment before smiling back. His fingers twitched like he was nervous. "Well, they're kind of like thank yous. For... Helping and putting up with me and stuff these past few months. Being stuck on a small tour bus with me has to suck."

"We live together, Dan. I'm stuck with you every day," Phil laughed, giving a real smile this time that made his eyes scrunch up slightly. He grabbed the flowers gently from Dan's hands and walked to the kitchen, Dan falling into step behind. He searches the cupboard for the vase they haven't used in half a year and makes a happy noise when he finds it.

When he's done setting up the acacias on the table, Phil steps back and admires them. "I'd say they look quite nice there!"

Dan smiles at Phil, not even glancing at the flowers. "I'd reckon so."

-

Dan knew Phil was a bit of an oblivious idiot, especially after so many years of Dan's pining and obvious heart eyes gone unnoticed or not thought about by him. He's running out of excuses for buying those flowers by the final times it happens, so Dan only hopes that Phil finally takes the hint and looks up the meaning before Dan has to spell it out for him.

The fifth and final time it happens, Phil doesn't even notice that Dan is gone. 

The final day of their tour was the day before, and they finally had time to relax. They were sat on their normal spots on their couch, just close enough for their feet to touch, and Phil had just fell asleep out of tiredness, his laptop still pulled up on a Wikipedia list of different types of pancakes. He seemed so tired those last few days of tour that Dan just let him rest, trying not to make a sound so he could. 

When Phil woke up it was around a few hours later and his laptop sat on the coffee table in front of him. There was a pillow under his head and a blanket under him, probably both given to him by Dan to make him feel more comfortable. However, he felt absolutely terrible sleeping on the couch, a dull pain in his neck from having done so.

The flowers were obvious this time. Instead of them being in the kitchen already, or on the dining table, or some other place where they wouldn't be found for a couple of minutes, they were right in front of Phil on the table. Dan hadn't even hidden the fact that they were obviously for Phil. How much more bland could you be? He set them so they would be positioned to be the first thing Phil saw when he finally woke up.

Phil blinked sleepily for a few moments as he started to realize this fact then sat up with a sudden determination and started groping around for his phone. He remembered that day in the cold a while back, with Dan's pink cheeks and the way he turned around so suddenly, and Phil hears his voice echoing " _they have a cool meaning_ " in his head.

He spends the rest of the night researching the meanings of flowers.

-

Phil discovers the next day that ambrosia flowers are harder to find than he expected. He ends up having to go to a shop a bit out of London to get them, and thoroughly decides that that's almost enough "getting out of the house" for the whole week for him. It takes a thirty minute train ride and him getting lost in the shoppes trying to find it, and Phil doesn't make it back home for running on an hour and a half.

Thanks to Phil's horrible luck, Dan was awake by the time he got home and was fully worried about him.

"Where were you?" Dan called from the lounge the minute he heard the door close. "You didn't leave a note or answer any of my texts!" His voice was getting closer. 

At that exact moment, Phil realized he left his phone home on accident.

"You never leave the house! Especially without telling me," Dan exclaimed, rounding the corner before stopping directly in front of Phil. "You could've been dead, or kidnapped, or- What are those?" He stopped, noticing the flowers in Phil's hands.

Phil jumps right in. "They're ambrosias!" He exclaimed, almost too quickly and giving away the fact that he's a little nervous. He shuffled his feet, taking a breath before saying the next line. "They mean returned love."

"They mean returned love?" Dan repeated slowly, as if trying to confirm he heard that right.

"I know you just got flowers yesterday and everything, but I thought it was time I returned the favor. You know, like, give back. I'm sorry if you don't like them, but I was trying to find one that had the perfect meaning, and that was nearly impossible-"

"Phil," Dan said, interrupting his rant. "Did you look up the meaning of the flowers I got you?"

"Did you mean them?" He sounded a bit breathless. When Dan nodded, Phil said, "I got those because of the meaning," He gestured to the ambrosias. "I thought it worked well, but if you don't like them-"

"I love them," Dan interrupted again, and he, too, sounded a bit breathless. 

And even after they kiss, even after they move a bit later, even after they're together for five years and _finally_ own a dog and are engaged, Dan still buys Phil yellow acacias every few months.

"Just for the memories," He'll say, setting them on the dining table, or the coffee table, or the counter in the kitchen. They're almost there to mock Phil for _procrastinating on looking up the definition for nearly a year_ , but he's hopeful Dan doesn't actually buy them for that reason.

Dan actually suggests to Phil that they could have acacias as the flowers at their wedding, but Phil laughs it off. The "secret love" wasn't so secret anymore, so it didn't make much sense.

(They end up using acacias anyway. Just for the memories.)

**Author's Note:**

> thank u to my best friends julie and austin as always ! u make my life 100% better.


End file.
